Pissed Russian sleeps off knifing

Missus finally spots 6-inch hangover

A Russian electrician who was stabbed by a workmate during a robust after-work booze session was unaware he had a six-inch kitchen knife in his back until his missus alerted him to the fact - by which time he'd crashed out for a bit, got a bus home, had some breakfast and collapsed back into bed.

Yuri Lyalin, 53, from the northern city of Vologda, had apparently spent the evening getting sloshed with a "watchman" at his workplace when they got into a bit of a barney, according to Interfax news agency. Lyalin woke up the next morning in the watchman's office, decided to pull a sickie and duly staggered homewards.

Komsomolskaya Pravda continues that he scoffed a quick bit of sausage from the fridge and hit the sack. A couple of hours later, his wife spotted the knife handle protruding from his body and called an ambulance.

Surgeon Viktor Belov explained that "by good fortune, it [the knife] had gone through soft tissue without touching vital organs".

Lyalin is reportedly fine, the BBC notes, and bears no ill-will towards his attacker. He said: "We were drinking and what doesn't happen when you're drunk?"

Despite this, the assailant, who reported himself in to the authorities, faces an appearence before the beak. Deputy prosecutor Pavel Vorobyov confirmed: "Unique and intriguing the case may be, but the accused faces a severe punishment."

That Lyalin was able to shrug off a blade in the back comes as no surprise to those who've experienced Eastern Europeans' penchant for Olympic-standard leglessness. As we recently reported, a Belarus woman got royally sloshed on her 32nd birthday, decided to kip between two railway lines and didn't wake up even when a train passed over her at 90mph.

She recounted: "The doctors said it was a good job I was so hard asleep, otherwise I would have woken up with the sound of the train and got my head knocked off." ®